Pages

Friday, December 27, 2013

Guest blog and Giveaway with Becca Smith Like An 80’s TV Show, I’m A Sucker For Crossovers!

Like An 80’s TV Show, I’m A
Sucker For Crossovers!

I love a
good crossover! I’m old enough to remember when Simon & Simon guested on
Magnum P.I.! I was just a kid, but crossovers were a huge influence on me and
inevitably shaped the way I tell stories. I fell in love with shared universes.
It somehow made the stories more exciting! I’m still a sucker for it! I’m
counting down the days for when Caroline from The Vampire Diaries will make an
appearance on The Originals!

So when
I was writing my newest book Atlas, I just couldn’t resist! I had to make it a
part of the same universe as my teen fiction series The Riser Saga. Even though
Riser takes place 300 years in the future and Atlas takes place now, it was
actually easier than I thought it would be. In The Riser Saga a pill called
Age-pro was invented in 2020, which stops the aging process and essentially
makes you immortal. The seeds for an origin story started to plant in my brain
and even though Atlas is technically not a prequel, the major players are the
same from Riser just 300 years younger.

The nice
thing is that you don’t need to read The Riser Saga to read Atlas. It’s just an
added bonus to the fans of Riser to learn about characters before they became
corrupted and evil.

One of
my favorite examples of an epic crossover in a book series was in the Word/Void
series by Terry Brooks. I ended up standing on a couch at work I was so excited
when he mashed up his Shannara series with the Word/Void series. It blew my
mind!

There’s
something so amazing about making everything connected. I think that’s what
crossovers essentially are. Making the world feel small and huge all at once. I
hope I can bring the same joy of a shared universe in my books that I’ve
experienced in other people’s writing over the years!

Kala Hicks is part of a covert elite military team that answers directly to the President of the United States. But during an emergency mission aboard Air Force One, Kala is shocked to discover that the real threat is none other than the President himself. Defying her commanding officer, Jack Norbin, Kala takes the shot, and her life changes forever.

The moment the President is killed, a supernatural force speaks to Kala, telling her that she has to commit one act of atrocity every four days… or the world will end. Thrown into a reality she never could have imagined, Kala faces off with creatures of legend; from demons determined to make her fail and plunge the Earth into chaos, to angels who don’t trust her to do the job and are willing to kill her to claim it for themselves.

Pitted against the forces of good and evil, Kala must choose whether to save the world by doing the unthinkable, or sit back and let it burn. And four days later, she’ll have to do it again.

Excerpt End of Chapter 3:Very carefully, Jack opened the door that led to the President’s office.What awaited them was terrifying.President Jareth Wilton stood behind his desk. He was wearing a vest that held five grey bars of C-4 wired into a bomb. Wilton was a tall man, well over six feet with stark black hair and a long face. He was a young President, only fifty years old, but he looked like he’d aged twenty years since the last time Kala had seen him at a press conference, with dark rings under his eyes and worry lines on his forehead. But his smile was what made the scene surreal and horrific. His thin lips were grinning as if he’d just climbed Mt. Everest. President Wilton stared directly at Jack as the door swung open the rest of the way. “I figured it out! I figured out how to break it! No one will ever have to do what I’ve had to do again! Do you realize what this means?”Kala knew then and there that the man was cracked. Figured what out? Break what? He was rambling like a mad man.But the more frightening moment came when Jack responded back to Wilton. “Killing yourself is impossible. People have tried that in the past.”Not only was President Wilton talking crazy, but apparently Jack knew his language and was responding accordingly.Kala noticed that Wilton’s eyes lit up when Jack spoke. “You’re the one they sent to replace me.”Jack nodded.What? Kala was seriously confused.Kala spoke up, “What’s going on Jack?”Replace him for what? Jack didn’t acknowledge Kala or the rest of the team, which was shifting uncomfortably behind him.Wilton shook his head, serious. “You can’t do it. You have to let me detonate this bomb. We have to crash the plane! It’s the only way to stop it!”“You can’t stop it!” Jack yelled back.“I can and I will!” Wilton talked into an earpiece. “NOW!”The plane nose-dived.Everyone jolted forward and stumbled from the force of it.Jack barked orders, “Lali get up to the Flight Deck and by any means necessary take over this plane!”Lali paused for a second, she looked more confused than Kala felt, but after a moment to gain her bearings as the plane was falling fast, she managed to high-tail it out of the room and up to the Flight Deck. Kala was sure they’d hit ground at any moment.Jack aimed his gun at the President’s head.Wilton was frantic. He ducked behind his large oak desk that was bolted to the ground.“You can’t kill me! You’ll ruin everything!” Wilton yelled.Jack turned to Kala and Derek. “No one shoots him but me!”Kala kind of nodded, but she was in shock at the fact that they were about to flatten a part of the capital with Air Force One. She really didn’t care what Jack was saying. She couldn’t let President Wilton set off that bomb and kill thousands. Jack shot at the desk, trying to hit the president, but he didn’t come close.Only Kala could make a shot like that and not get them all killed from shooting a hole through the plane.Kala and Derek made eye contact. Kala could tell Derek was thinking the same thing. He whispered so only Kala could hear, “Do it.”Kala’s nod was barely perceptible.Jack saw her and his eyes went wide. “Kala STOP!”Kala shrugged. “I can’t let him do this, Jack. I’m sorry.” Only the top of Wilton’s head was showing. It was enough. Kala took her shot.

About the Author:

Becca C. Smith received her Film degree from Full Sail University and has worked in the Film and Television industry for most of her adult life. In 2010 Becca published her first novel, Riser followed by the sequel, Reaper, in 2011, and the finale, Ripper in 2013. In 2012 Becca wrote the children’s novel Alexis Tappendorf and the Search for Beale’s Treasure. She is also the co-author of the teen graphic novel Ghost Whisperer: The Haunted.

Becca currently lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband, Stephan and their two cats Jack and Duke.